


Sunrise

by flaming_muse



Category: Glee
Genre: Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-05
Updated: 2012-10-05
Packaged: 2017-11-15 17:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/529624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_muse/pseuds/flaming_muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt wakes up in the morning.</p><p>set within 4x04 ("The Break Up"), no spoilers beyond</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunrise

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Deutsch available: [Sunrise -- Sonnenaufgang](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12159426) by [Klaineship](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Klaineship/pseuds/Klaineship)



There is a long, hazy, perfect moment of joy when Kurt first wakes in the morning. He’s curled on his side in his bed, snuggled beneath the covers, and there’s Blaine’s arm tight around his waist, Blaine’s warm body pressed up behind him from shoulders to calves, Blaine’s nose buried against the nape of his neck, sleeping close in a way they have had so few opportunities to enjoy. It makes Kurt tingle from head to toe with drowsy satisfaction, with happiness. It’s everything he’s ever dreamed of for them, this simple, comfortable love, Blaine sleeping with him, Blaine in New York with him on high thread count sheets.

Smiling against his pillow, Kurt squeezes his eyes shut and rests his hand on top of Blaine’s wrist, letting himself drift back into the sleep he’s just barely left, remembering flowers, kisses, sitting beside Blaine at Callbacks, Blaine at the piano calling him the love of his life, Blaine singing to him, Blaine’s eyes going sad and tear-filled - Blaine telling him he -

Kurt’s eyes snap open, and he freezes, all of the warmth in his body gone in a flash.

_Oh, god._

He stares at his wall without seeing it.

This isn’t a dream come true at all. This is a nightmare.

Blaine cheated on him. Blaine came to New York to tell him he’d cheated on him.

Trapped against him, Kurt struggles to draw in a breath. He struggles not to cry. He struggles not to shove Blaine away, because as awful as this mockery of a loving embrace is - Blaine must have rolled toward him in the night, and Kurt, like he always has in everything, like he’s wired to do it, welcomed him - he can’t even fathom the idea of Blaine waking up while they’re entwined this way. What if Blaine pulled away the second he woke? What if Blaine _stayed_ this close to him, like he thought Kurt wasn’t so hurt he would mind? There’s no reaction that wouldn’t be awful.

Kurt’s not sure there’s anything with Blaine that isn’t awful right now, though, because the world has shifted from one where he has a boyfriend who loves and adores him and values everything that they have to one where that very same man has cheated on him because being apart is _hard_ , because Kurt chasing his dreams is hard, because hooking up is worth more than their love is.

Kurt doesn’t understand this new world at all.

How can Blaine call him the love of his life and still do that? How can Blaine think it’s in any way a consolation that it didn’t mean anything to him, like it makes it _better_ that it wasn’t anyone that Blaine cared about but it _still_ was more important than their relationship? How can sex meaning nothing to him be okay, when sex between them was love, was a promise, was _everything_?

How can he throw back in Kurt’s face that it’s somehow Kurt’s fault that he cheated, when it was Blaine who encouraged him to go to New York to follow his dreams in the first place? How can Blaine believe so much in Kurt’s future and yet not enough in _theirs_?

Kurt absolutely can’t have a conversation in bed with him. He’s not sure he can have a conversation at all. He’s not sure there’s anything that Blaine can say that can make Kurt stop feeling like his heart has been carved out of his chest with betrayal. Kurt’s been hurt a lot in his life, but never like this, never by someone who matters so much, never by someone Kurt didn’t think he’d ever have to protect himself against.

Apparently he was wrong about that.

Slowly, slowly, Kurt slips out from under Blaine’s arm and then out of the bed. He stands there for a minute beside it, watching Blaine curl into the warm spot Kurt’s left behind and bury his face in the indentation Kurt’s head has left in the pillow.

Looking at him, Kurt can’t help but want to pull the covers up over Blaine’s shoulder, can’t help but want to smooth his hair off his forehead, can’t help but want to crawl back into bed with him, and if he could do any of that and erase the hurt he would. The desire is so strong. He wants to be there with him. He wants to feel safe and loved in his arms. He never thought they would be a place he wanted to escape.

But there’s nothing that can erase the hurt, and he can’t go back.

Kurt knows Blaine feels bad about what he did - it’s been written in almost every line of his body since he arrived, now that Kurt knows what he’s been looking at - but he doesn’t know how Blaine can _fix_ it.

Blaine’s always been able to pull out big, romantic gestures - _like coming to New York on a whim and singing something meaningful in public_ , Kurt’s mind supplies - but if he can’t _explain_ , if he can’t say anything that can turn the choking pain in Kurt’s heart into something a little more palatable, if he can’t somehow give Kurt something to hold onto...

Kurt takes a step back.

Maybe this morning Blaine will somehow pull a miracle out of his pocket. He’ll find just the right words. He’ll find the key that will unlock the chains weighing down Kurt’s heart. He’ll open a door that they can both go through together.

Wondering with a lump in his throat if this will be the last time he sees Blaine asleep, Kurt makes himself turn away from the bed and grabs some clothes before he slips out into the living area.

The wooden floor is cool against the soles of Kurt’s feet, but he wraps his arms around himself and shivers more from the chill in his heart than the chill in his room. If there are such things as miracles, he used his up when he got his father back after his heart attack.

He’s always believed in Blaine, from the second they met on that staircase. He’s always depended on him. He’s always trusted Blaine to be able to help make things right in his life. And now he can’t.

Right now, Blaine is a stranger wearing a face Kurt knows almost as well as his own. Blaine’s the person who turned his life upside-down, dumping out all of the hopes and beliefs he’d so carefully gathered between them. Blaine’s the one who holds all of the answers about this unthinkable situation and yet still not one thing to offer, not yet, to make Kurt stop hurting.

Kurt looks over his shoulder toward his bed and wishes he could slip back under those covers and into Blaine’s arms and make this nightmare disappear. He wishes he could stop choking on every lungful of air, could see the light in the sun, could feel anything but cold and numb and aching all at once.

He wishes he could have everything he did when he woke up yesterday, when he had an amazing job, an amazing apartment, and an amazing boyfriend he wanted to share his life with.

But it’s not yesterday. It’s today. And _this_ is his life.

This - this mess of heartache and confusion, this suffocating press of sadness and betrayal, this sense of somehow being not enough - is it.

All Kurt can do is make some tea, keep breathing, and wait for Blaine to wake up.

As the sun slowly rises through the windows of the apartment, he finally hears someone start to stir from bed. Kurt takes a steadying sip from his mug.

He reminds himself with a nauseating sense of resignation that wishing for answers or miracles does not, in fact, make them exist at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Reminder: I am spoiler-free; please help me stay that way! :)


End file.
